Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

4:30pm CDT

Why Does Capitalism Suck and Why Does it Fail? An Introduction to Marxist Economics

Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm - 6:00pm CDT

Why does capitalism produce lousy jobs, long hours, unemployment, racism, sexism, homo/transphobia, xenophobia and periodic economic crises that make things even worse? Marx's analysis of capitalism provides some key answers.

Speakers

Charlie Post

Charlie Post is a long-time revolutionary socialist and writer, and a member of the Tempest Collective.

Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm - 6:00pm CDT
Burnham ABC

Economics

10:00am CDT

Hustle Culture vs. Solidarity

Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

W190B

Hustle Culture offers working-class and poor people a false alternative to organizing that feels:: agency, aspiration, and a path that feels immediate and non-partisan. This panel examines how it shapeshifts across cultural contexts—from MLMs to Girl Boss feminism—and what its appeal reveals about blind spots in how the left communicates solidarity and collective action.

Speakers

Natalie Bencivega

Natalie Bencivenga is an award-winning journalist, producer, and media consultant based in Pittsburgh. She hosts and produces Week in Focus for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star and Just the Source for PublicSource, and is a fellow at Duquesne University's Institute for Ethics and Integrity... Read More →

Chenjerai Kumanyika

Chenjerai Kumanyika is a journalist, scholar, organizer, and professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is the host and creator of Unruly Subjects, produced with Rowhome Productions. Through conversations with organizers, journalists, artists, and scholars, Unruly... Read More →

Demetrius Noble

Demetrius "D." Noble is a professor, poet, and cultural organizer specializing in African American Literature, Black class antagonisms, and Hip-Hop Studies. A member of Greensboro Socialists, his work has appeared in Tempest, Hammer & Hope, African American Review, Socialism & Democracy... Read More →

Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
W190B

Economics

12:00pm CDT

State Fiscal Strategy for the 21st Century: Dispatches from New York's New Era

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

Jackson Park C

Working-class priorities are reshaping fiscal policy across America’s cities, prompting urgent debates on state and municipal budgets. Join representatives from New York’s Fiscal Policy Institute to discuss the fiscal issues confronting movement advocates and elected officials in New York State and New York City, from expanding revenue through taxing the rich to countering misinfomation about millionaire tax flight.

Speakers

Elizabeth Cooper

Elizabeth Cooper is the Housing Policy Analyst at the Fiscal Policy Institute. She received an MA in economics from the New School for Social Research. She is also the research coordinator for North Jersey DSA's electoral working group.

Ciarán Finlayson

Ciarán Finlayson is Communications Director at the Fiscal Policy Institute. He is a student in the economics department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, and received an MA from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University, United K... Read More →

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
Jackson Park C

Economics

5:00pm CDT

The US and China: Imperial Rivalry in a Multipolar World

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT

Jackson Park C

“Chimerica” is over. The twin titans of neoliberal globalization are now at loggerheads over everything from trade to high tech, geopolitical alliances, and military hegemony over the Asia Pacific. Today’s global slump, exacerbated by Trump’s disastrous war in Iran, has heightened this imperial rivalry. This panel will examine the roots of the conflict, its trajectory, and how the left can build international solidarity from below against it.

Speakers

Tobita Chow

Tobita Chow is an organizer based in the Chicago area. He researches progressive strategy, great power conflict, and international climate politics. Tobita was the founding Director of Justice is Global.

Ashley Smith

Ashley Smith is co-author of China in Global Capitalism and has written in numerous publications including Truthout, New Politics, Against the Current, and many other online and print publications.

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
Jackson Park C

Economics

3:00pm CDT

The Politics of Debt: Organizing in the Age of Finance

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

Burnham ABC

As finance capital continues to reshape working class life, people are increasingly forced into debt to make ends meet. What is the political landscape of debt today, and how should we respond at the level of action? How has financialization shifted leverage across different sites of struggle, and what new contradictions or vulnerabilities has it produced for capital? Debt Collective organizers working on healthcare, education, and housing debt will discuss their work and the politics of debt in the current conjuncture.

Speakers

Braxton Brewington

René Christian Moya

René Christian Moya is an organizer with the Debt Collective and the Los Angeles Tenants Union. He is the former campaign director for statewide ballot initiative in 2020 to strengthen rent control in California, and has worked extensively on tenant rights, local rent control campaigns... Read More →

Lindsey Muniak

Lindsey Muniak is an organizer with the Debt Collective, where she leads national efforts to abolish medical debt, interrupt patterns of financialization in healthcare, and bring those who have experienced the failures of our profit-driven healthcare system into the fight for its transformation... Read More →

Sponsors

Debt Collective

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Burnham ABC

Economics

4:30pm CDT

10:00am CDT

12:00pm CDT

5:00pm CDT

3:00pm CDT

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